# Prop Firms Hub > Independent, documented comparison of proprietary trading firms. Every rule we publish is taken from a firm's own terms and dated. Scores are computed from a published rubric — never from reviews, commission rates or opinion. ## About the data - Firm data is recorded field by field from published terms, pricing and payout pages. - The PFH Score weights rule fairness 30%, payout terms 25%, true cost 20%, platform 15%, track record 5%, terms transparency 5%. A score is only published once documented components cover a majority of that weight. - A trader review score appears only at 10 verified reviews. A median payout time appears only at 5 verified payout proofs. Below those thresholds the field says so rather than showing a number. - Firms pay for listings and labelled placements. They cannot buy a score, a position, or the removal of a review. See https://propfirmshub.com/company/affiliate-disclosure. - Content is authored in English and translated into 10 languages. English lives at the site root; other languages use a /{locale} prefix. ## Methodology and policy - [How the PFH Score is calculated, component by component](https://propfirmshub.com/company/methodology) - [What we verify before publishing a review, and what we delete](https://propfirmshub.com/company/review-policy) - [How the site earns and what commercial relationships cannot buy](https://propfirmshub.com/company/affiliate-disclosure) - [Who publishes this and why](https://propfirmshub.com/company/about-us) ## Cornerstone guides - [Prop trading for complete beginners](https://propfirmshub.com/prop-trading/prop-trading-for-complete-beginners): A prop firm sells you an evaluation: a paid test on a simulated account with a profit target and loss limits attached. Pass it and the firm funds an account with its own capital and pays you a share o... - [Is prop trading legitimate?](https://propfirmshub.com/prop-trading/is-prop-trading-legitimate): Yes as a business model, and unevenly in practice. Selling a paid evaluation and paying a share of simulated profit is legal in most jurisdictions, and several firms have paid traders reliably for yea... - [How much can you realistically earn?](https://propfirmshub.com/prop-trading/how-much-can-you-realistically-earn): For most traders the honest expected value of a prop evaluation is negative, because the fee is paid with certainty and the payout is not. A realistic good outcome for a consistently profitable trader... - [Position sizing against a drawdown](https://propfirmshub.com/prop-trading/position-sizing-against-a-drawdown): Size from the distance to your fail level, not from the account’s headline size. Take the current gap between equity and the drawdown level, decide how many consecutive losses you must survive, with e... - [The true cost of a prop firm challenge](https://propfirmshub.com/prop-trading/true-cost-of-a-prop-firm-challenge): The price of one evaluation is the smallest part of the cost. The real figure is the fee multiplied by the attempts you actually need, plus resets, plus any monthly platform and data charges, plus the... - [How to choose a prop firm](https://propfirmshub.com/prop-trading/how-to-choose-a-prop-firm): Choose on the rules you will actually trade under, in this order: how the drawdown is measured, what the payout terms and the firm’s payout record look like, the true cost of reaching a funded account... - [Prop firm scams and how to spot them](https://propfirmshub.com/prop-trading/prop-firm-scams-and-how-to-spot-them): The signals that actually predict a bad outcome are dull ones: terms that define breaches vaguely or change with no version history, payout delays reported in clusters around one date, rules that surf... - [Static vs trailing drawdown](https://propfirmshub.com/prop-trading/static-vs-trailing-drawdown): A static drawdown sits at a fixed level calculated from your starting balance and never moves. A trailing drawdown follows the account upward, usually from the equity high and sometimes from closed ba... - [How prop firm payouts work](https://propfirmshub.com/prop-trading/how-prop-firm-payouts-work): Once funded you trade to a minimum profit, wait for the payout window to open, request the withdrawal, and the firm checks the account against its rules before paying, typically within 1 to 14 busines... - [The consistency rule, explained](https://propfirmshub.com/prop-trading/the-consistency-rule-explained): A consistency rule caps how much of your total profit any single day, or sometimes any single trade, may contribute, commonly 25-50%. Its purpose is to stop a trader passing on one oversized position.... ## Getting started - [Prop firm vs personal trading account](https://propfirmshub.com/prop-trading/prop-firm-vs-personal-account): A prop account gives you more size for a smaller upfront outlay, in exchange for rules and a profit split. A personal account gives you complete freedom on capital you have to supply yourself. If your... - [Do you need trading experience first?](https://propfirmshub.com/prop-trading/do-you-need-trading-experience): Yes, in the one sense that matters: you need a method whose expectancy you have measured across a few hundred trades. An evaluation does not teach that, it prices it. Without a measured method the fee... - [Demo accounts and why they matter](https://propfirmshub.com/prop-trading/demo-accounts-and-why-they-matter): A demo account is the cheapest place to build the two things an evaluation actually tests: a repeatable method, and the discipline to size it against a loss limit. Its weakness is emotional realism ra... - [Prop trading around the world](https://propfirmshub.com/prop-trading/prop-trading-around-the-world): Access is mostly a question of the firm’s restricted-country list and your local tax treatment, not of legality for you as a trader. A handful of jurisdictions restrict the firms rather than their cus... ## Rules and risk - [Daily loss limits and reset times](https://propfirmshub.com/prop-trading/daily-loss-limits-and-reset-times): A daily loss limit caps how much you may lose between one reset time and the next, commonly 4-5% of the account. Two details decide how strict it really is: whether it is measured on equity, which inc... - [Minimum trading days](https://propfirmshub.com/prop-trading/minimum-trading-days): Most evaluations require a minimum number of days on which you actually trade, commonly 3 to 10, and many firms only count a day where a position was both opened and closed. The rule exists to stop on... - [News trading restrictions](https://propfirmshub.com/prop-trading/news-trading-restrictions): News restrictions typically forbid opening or closing positions within a window around high-impact releases, commonly two to five minutes either side, and some firms extend the ban to holding through... - [Weekend and overnight holding](https://propfirmshub.com/prop-trading/weekend-and-overnight-holding): Whether you may hold overnight or over the weekend is a per-firm and often per-instrument rule, and futures accounts are the strictest — many require you to be flat by the session close. The real cost... - [Prohibited strategies, and what they actually mean](https://propfirmshub.com/prop-trading/prohibited-strategies-list): The list is usually latency and arbitrage trading, copy trading across accounts or between traders, hedging between accounts, tick scalping, and any exploitation of demo pricing. What varies between f... - [What counts as a breach](https://propfirmshub.com/prop-trading/what-counts-as-a-breach): A breach is any event the terms define as ending the account: exceeding the daily loss limit, exceeding the maximum drawdown, or violating a named rule such as a prohibited strategy. The questions wor... - [When firms change their rules](https://propfirmshub.com/prop-trading/when-firms-change-their-rules): Firms change rules, usually with immediate effect for new accounts and sometimes for existing ones, and the funded agreement generally reserves the right to do it. Your protection is not a promise but... ## Passing the challenge - [How long a challenge really takes](https://propfirmshub.com/prop-trading/how-long-a-challenge-really-takes): The trading minimum is usually measured in days, but the honest answer spans the attempts you fail. Most traders who eventually pass do so on a second or third attempt, weeks or months apart, and the... - [One-step vs two-step evaluations](https://propfirmshub.com/prop-trading/one-step-vs-two-step-evaluations): A one-step evaluation is faster and usually paired with a tighter drawdown, a consistency rule, or both. A two-step is slower with more forgiving limits. One-step is not the easier product — it is the... - [What to do after a failed challenge](https://propfirmshub.com/prop-trading/what-to-do-after-a-failed-challenge): Diagnose before you rebuy. Separate the three causes: a strategy with no edge, a sound strategy sized too large for the drawdown, and rule mechanics you misread. Only the third is fixed by trying agai... - [Resets: worth it or not?](https://propfirmshub.com/prop-trading/resets-worth-it-or-not): A reset is worth buying when you know precisely which rule ended the account and have changed the behaviour that hit it. It is worth skipping in every other case. Compare the reset price against a fre... - [Trading plans that survive a challenge](https://propfirmshub.com/prop-trading/trading-plans-that-survive-a-challenge): A plan that survives an evaluation is written against the rules as well as the market: risk per trade derived from the distance to the fail level, a personal daily stop set below the firm’s daily limi... - [Risk per trade for a 10% target](https://propfirmshub.com/prop-trading/risk-per-trade-for-a-10-percent-target): For a 10% target sitting under a 10% maximum drawdown, risking 0.5% per trade lets you survive twenty consecutive losses and reach the target in roughly forty net winning trades at 1:1. Raising risk s... - [Journaling during an evaluation](https://propfirmshub.com/prop-trading/journaling-during-an-evaluation): A journal is how you find out whether a failed evaluation was variance or a broken method. Record the account state alongside the trade — distance to the drawdown, the day count, and how much of the d... - [Passing on a small account](https://propfirmshub.com/prop-trading/passing-on-a-small-account): A small account is the cheapest honest way to prove a method against real rules, and its binding constraint is instrument granularity rather than psychology: on a $10,000 futures account a single cont... - [Why most traders fail phase two](https://propfirmshub.com/prop-trading/why-most-traders-fail-phase-two): Phase two usually halves the profit target while keeping the same drawdown, which makes it easier on paper and harder in practice. Traders arrive with a method that has just worked, size up because th... - [Instant funding without a challenge](https://propfirmshub.com/prop-trading/instant-funding-without-a-challenge): Instant funding skips the evaluation and charges for it — in a higher fee, a lower profit split, or a drawdown so tight that the account behaves like an evaluation you are already inside. It suits a t... ## Costs and value - [Hidden fees: activation, data and platform](https://propfirmshub.com/prop-trading/hidden-fees-activation-data-platform): Beyond the evaluation fee, the charges that appear are activation fees once you pass, monthly platform licences, market-data subscriptions on futures accounts, reset fees, and withdrawal or currency-c... - [Cheapest challenges by account size](https://propfirmshub.com/prop-trading/cheapest-challenges-by-account-size): The cheapest evaluation is rarely the cheapest route to a funded account, because attempt count and post-pass charges dominate the total. Compare the fee per attempt against reset pricing, activation... - [Are discount codes worth waiting for?](https://propfirmshub.com/prop-trading/are-discount-codes-worth-waiting-for): Most large firms run a discount almost continuously, so the discounted price is effectively the real price and waiting saves less than it looks. Waiting does pay around known sale periods, where 30-40... - [Refundable fees, explained](https://propfirmshub.com/prop-trading/refundable-fees-explained): A refundable fee is returned with your first or second payout, not when you pass. It is a genuine saving, but it belongs in the upside case rather than in the price you compare, because it only arrive... - [How to use the challenge cost calculator](https://propfirmshub.com/prop-trading/how-to-use-the-challenge-cost-calculator): The calculator converts a sticker price into the number that matters: the expected cost of reaching a funded account. Enter the fee, a realistic attempt count, reset pricing and any monthly charges, a... ## After you are funded - [Scaling plans compared](https://propfirmshub.com/prop-trading/scaling-plans-compared): A scaling plan raises your account size after documented profit, typically 10-25% gained across a number of payouts. Three differences decide whether a plan is generous: whether the drawdown scales wi... - [Profit splits and when they rise](https://propfirmshub.com/prop-trading/profit-splits-and-when-they-rise): Most firms start at 80% and raise it to 90% at a scaling milestone or after a set number of payouts. The increase is worth less than it appears, because it only applies to money you actually withdraw.... - [What to do if a payout is delayed](https://propfirmshub.com/prop-trading/what-to-do-if-a-payout-is-delayed): Ask in writing for the exact clause being applied and an expected date, keep every reply, and stop adding risk on that account until it clears. A delay with a cited clause is an administrative problem... - [The consistency review at payout](https://propfirmshub.com/prop-trading/consistency-review-at-payout): Many firms check profit distribution when you request money rather than while you trade, so a rule you never noticed during the evaluation can hold up your first withdrawal. Work the cap out in dollar... - [Managing several funded accounts](https://propfirmshub.com/prop-trading/managing-several-funded-accounts): Several accounts spread firm risk and multiply the rules you have to track, and because copying the same trades across accounts is prohibited by most firms, it is genuinely more work rather than the s... - [Losing a funded account: what next](https://propfirmshub.com/prop-trading/losing-a-funded-account-what-next): Most firms let you buy a new evaluation immediately, and several offer a discounted route back for a previously funded trader. Before taking either, establish whether the account was lost to variance... - [Taxes on funded trading income](https://propfirmshub.com/prop-trading/taxes-on-funded-trading-income): In most countries a prop payout is ordinary or self-employment income rather than a capital gain, because you are paid a share of profit under a contract rather than trading your own capital. Nothing... - [Payout methods and fees](https://propfirmshub.com/prop-trading/payout-methods-and-fees): Payouts arrive by bank transfer, through a payment processor such as Deel or Rise, or in crypto, and each carries its own fee, minimum and currency conversion. The processor is also where most delays... ## Firms and comparisons - [What makes a prop firm good for beginners](https://propfirmshub.com/prop-trading/best-prop-firms-for-beginners): For a first account, prioritise a static drawdown, a rulebook written in numbers rather than adjectives, a fee low enough that three attempts are affordable, and a documented payout record. Large acco... - [What to look for in a futures prop firm](https://propfirmshub.com/prop-trading/best-futures-prop-firms): Futures evaluations differ from forex ones in three ways that decide the outcome: the drawdown usually trails from the equity high, data and platform fees are monthly and unavoidable, and most account... - [Firms with no consistency rule](https://propfirmshub.com/prop-trading/firms-with-no-consistency-rule): A few firms publish no consistency requirement, and that genuinely helps a trader whose edge is concentrated in a handful of sessions. Verify it in the funded agreement rather than on the marketing pa... - [What "fastest paying" actually means](https://propfirmshub.com/prop-trading/fastest-paying-prop-firms): "Fastest paying" almost always refers to processing time after approval, not to the total wait, which also includes the payout cycle and the firm’s own review. A firm advertising 24-hour payouts on a... - [Alternatives to the biggest firms](https://propfirmshub.com/prop-trading/alternatives-to-the-biggest-firms): Smaller firms often price better and enforce more flexibly, and they carry more counterparty risk, because a firm with less capital has less room to absorb a bad month. The sensible compromise is to j... ## Reference - [Prop trading glossary](https://propfirmshub.com/prop-trading/glossary): 54 defined terms with how firms actually apply each one - [Firm comparison](https://propfirmshub.com/best-prop-firms): 26 firms with documented rules, filterable on every field - [Calculators](https://propfirmshub.com/prop-trading/calculators): true cost, drawdown, position size and payout projection - [Verified payouts](https://propfirmshub.com/payouts): payout proofs submitted by traders and checked against a document ## Citation Content is written by Martin Krupauer. When citing a figure, please note the date on the page — firm rules change and every field carries the date it was last checked.